Blog Archive

19 May 2014

I have had some conversations with a few of you and a consistent remark has been that you miss seeing the whiteboard of everyone’s results for the day on Wodify.

Pocket Coach does not currently have this feature and it may be developed for it either. He is the thing; this is about you and your progress and benchmarking your loads, volume, etc off of another is NOT ideal. You may be creating a glass ceiling for yourself or you may be biting off more than you can chew.

You need to be in tune with your body and its abilities. Know ahead of time what you think you can do. Then as you are warming up make the decision if you can do more or less.

As you read this you are probably thinking to yourself, “Ok, great Neal but what about seeing everyone’s scores.” So we are bringing back the old school! Post your results daily to the blog for the day. This is how we get everyone doing it. If you train in the AM and want to see what the PM did, post your results and others will begin doing so as well.

If you have a comment about the training for the day or questions, post them to comments. This will help us understand what topics you are interested in reading about and make the blog more robust for you, The Community!

16 May 2014

Boom! It’s another PR Friday and it is time to FIRE IT UP! FIRE IT UP!

Get after the deadlift today and rip that sh*t off of the floor. BEAST MODE. WARRIOR MODE. Be sure to post your results to comments here. This blog is going to become the de facto whiteboard for everyone so you can see each other results.

What Are You Training For?

Speaking of posting results…If you have not been getting into Pocket Coach and tracking your daily training then you are not really training. You’re just working out. That is ok if you have nothing to train for but if you are here for one of the following: improve performance, lose weight, gain muscle and strength, or for any other purpose beyond get a sweat; then you have no idea how to follow what is going on if you are not journaling the process on Pocket Coach. Get in there, play around with it and become comfortable with it. Don’t use excuses, hold yourself accountable. Your coach will then check in periodically to provide feedback and guidance.

14 May 2014

Way to attack every WOD this week. Everyone has been pushing hard to make themselves better before, during, and after class. It’s amazing to watch. Keep it up!

Here is another opportunity to make yourself better. The CFB Yoga Class will help you recover from this hard week of training and prepare you for next week. It will take place on Sunday morning at 8:30am. Please arrive a little early to be ready to start right at 8:30am. In order to participate, all you have to do is sign up below. Right now we have two people signed up and we need at least six people to make it a go, so please sign up as soon as you can. If you have any questions please shoot me an email – [email protected]

14 May 2014

This past Sunday, Mother’s Day, I was relaxing and watching the Today Show, when I saw something that made me do this:

Let me explain: they had a segment on cooking Mother’s Day brunch featuring Mary J. Blige’s personal chef. She was making a bunch of delicious looking stuff and making it healthy. One item was granola, using mostly nuts, dried fruit, and palm sugar. And as she’s describing the granola she keeps talking about palm sugar as “a better sugar” and a healthier sugar. Now you see why the face palm?

I see this on a lot of Paleo blogs too; they’ll use honey instead of sucrose, and almond or coconut meal instead of flour and proclaim it a healthy item. So now seems like a good time to tackle the “better sugar” question.

The Glycemic Index

Let’s start here with a quick review. The glycemic index is a measure of how a particular food or beverage affects your blood sugar compared to 50 grams of white bread. Low glycemic foods have a glycemic index (GI) below 55, and high glycemic foods are above 70. High glycemic foods cause a larger spike in your blood sugar, resulting in more insulin production and usually followed by a drop off. This cycle occurring over and over again can lead to insulin resistance, and ultimately diabetes. Lower glycemic foods tend to hit the blood sugar more slowly, resulting in less insulin release and a more stable curve. This graph illustrates it well (hint: you want to be closer to the blue line).

It would stand to reason that lower glycemic sugars like palm sugar and agave would be good for you compared to sucrose, right? Not so fast. Sugar its still sugar. All forms of sugar are calorically equivalent at 4 calories per gram, and are still a source of calories that provides zero nutritional quality (no fiber, no vitamins, no minerals, no other nutrients). Agave is highly processed, and coconut palm sugar production may well be unsustainable.

It’s kind of like what I said about high fructose corn syrup and sucrose: just because one thing might be similar or slightly better than another thing, doesn’t mean both are good for you. If you’re pursuing a healthy diet, finding the healthiest type of sugar is like finding the healthiest version of Frosted Corn Cereal – one may be better than another but neither are all that great for you. If you are making something that requires sugar, think about how you can cut back on the sweetness. Maybe add a banana instead of some of the butter in cookies or bread, which will maintain consistency and add more natural sweetness. Or check out Stevia. I haven’t done any research personally (meaning I haven’t used it a bunch yet), but I’ve heard great reviews.

What are your thoughts on sugar? Do you have a go-to type of sweetener?